Looking Ahead

Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
You have established the earth, and it stands fast.
-Psalm 119:90

Tomorrow I go back to Hillsdale, and a new semester of classes begins on Wednesday. I am looking forward to the learning and growing that lies ahead of me. I come into these following months with a comfort that comes from knowing God's sovereignty and faithfulness. Having experienced His mercy to me in the past, I have every confidence that He will be gracious to me this semester.

Jonathan Edwards once wrote, "Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God." Over the fall semester, I have grown in love of God's sovereignty. The knowledge that God works all things for His glory is a comforting and joyful truth. Not only does He work all things for His glory, which is enough to satisfy a Christian's heart, but Romans 8:28 gives further peace to one's soul. "And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." As I go into a new set of classes, new challenges, new experiences, I know that God will bring glory to Himself in my life. The ways He chooses to magnify His name are also the means He has to conform my life to the image of Christ, and it will all be for my good. I love this quote from John Piper that sums up how God's passion for His glory also brings good to those He loves: "God's exaltation of his own glory is not narcissistic but loving, because it directs our attention away from ourselves to the one glorious reality that can satisfy our souls forever."

Not only do I have confidence in God's sovereign plan and purpose in my life, but also in His continued faithfulness towards me. The past grace in my life gives me complete faith for future grace, as well. My Savior's cross is the greatest of that past grace. I have already known God's endless and amazing grace, and that brings greater assurance that He will show more grace in the future. Piper also wrote, "The more we trust in future grace, the more we give God the opportunity in our lives to show the glory of his inexhaustible grace."

I am entering this new time with faith in God's sovereignty over my life, and with faith that He will continue to be good to me. My prayer for this semester is that I will "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18)

May God's glory grow greater in my eyes, and in the eyes of those around me, with every single day. "He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:15-16)